Old Drug War Strategies Don't Tackle Corruption Among Allies

An ''insidious threat'' is how the general described it. The phrase was used to conjure up images of the Red Menace destroying the free will of individuals.

Now, with the Soviet Union gone, the ''insidious threat'' that Gen. George A. Joulwan talks about refers to the drug trade in Latin America.

''Every country's sovereignty in Central and South America is violated by narco-traffickers,'' Joulwan said last week. ''It's a greater threat than that posed in the past by Cuba and the Soviet Union.''

Joulwan heads the U.S. Southern Command, based in Panama, which oversees U.S. military operations in Central and South America. He spoke to journalists Friday who had gathered in Miami for a conference on Latin America.

That drug trafficking is a threat to any society is not new - nor is it a false presumption for Latin countries with a rich history of corrupt politicians and military leaders.

But how big a role should the U.S. military play in helping the budding Latin American democracies stop the flow of drugs into the United States?

The Bush administration put most of its emphasis on the U.S. military assisting Latin countries with radar surveillance and air reconnaissance flights that looked for coca crops, opium poppies and marijuana.

The Clinton administration seems to be keeping to that same policy, using the military as the main tool for achieving a drug-free continent.

On Monday, for instance, Deputy Secretary of State Clifton Wharton said human rights would be the ''core of our foreign policy,'' an indication that there would be a return to the human-rights issues stressed by former President Carter.

Yet Wharton also stressed U.S. involvement in the region's battles against Colombian coca kings and drug lords throughout Latin America.

Something seems skewed here. Regardless of the wonderful progress that Latin nations have made in the past decade in moving toward democratically elected leaders, corruption - especially in the military - is still common.

Not only are lowly, underpaid soldiers from Colombia to Guatemala on the take to help move drugs, but several distinguished officers have been known to be involved in drug trafficking for years.

Last month, the U.S. State Department released its International Narcotics Control Strategy Report, detailing progress in finding and destroying drug crops and money-laundering operations throughout Latin America. This is what it had to say about three countries in which narco-terrorism remains prevalent:

- Colombia: ''There is concern over widespread corruption among Colombian air controllers, who frequently alert trafficker flights when air interdiction operations are taking place.''

- Peru: ''Corruption is endemic in virtually all Peruvian government institutions. The Peruvian National Police remove personnel who are reliably reported to be corrupt from drug enforcement officials, but disciplinary action beyond transfer is not common.''

- El Salvador: In 1992, a Salvadoran Air Force colonel and some of his associates were arrested and charged with selling explosives to Colombian narcotics traffickers.

The corruption of some military or civilian government officials extends to Mexico, Guatemala, Venezuela and so on. The issue of human rights will likely conflict with the issue of fighting the ''insidious threat'' when the drug traffickers are found to be members of Latin America's vanguard militaries.

The evidence is building that new strategies must be used in fighting such corruption. But from the Clinton administration, we get no bold thinking - just the same old strategy of using our own military to prop up paper democracies.